Sonos To Take On Hubbl & Apple TV in 2025 As They Move To Make Money From Selling Ads & Data

Struggling to sell their network speakers, Sonos is set to have a crack at trying to make money flogging advertising, subscriptions and gaining click revenue from streaming giants with a new Hubbl competitor.

As tipped by ChannelNews months ago Sonos is building out a new TV operating system, now we know it’s called Ventura with a Sonos streaming box tipped to retail for around A$295, the Hubbl box only costs $99 and is already in big demand.

They will also compete head on with LG Electronics whose OLED TV’s that come with Web OS that is being used to strip out consumer viewing data every night, with the data then sold to the highest bidder including political parties.

Trade Desk, the company who is working with Sonos to develop the new OS claims that ” Ventura represents a major advance in streaming TV operating systems as it solves key issues with prevailing market systems today, including frustrating user experiences, inefficient advertising supply chains, and content conflicts-of-interest”.

Sonos App.

The connection to Sonos was first revealed in September when it was revealed that Sonos had engaged partners to develop the OS which is based on the Android AOSP, the open-source version not controlled by Google.

Trade Desk describe themselves as the fastest growing ‘demand-side platform’ that offers offering agencies and advertisers best-in-class technology to manage digital campaigns.

ChannelNews understands that Sonos is punting on selling advertising on the platform while collecting and selling data to third parties about the viewing and listening habits of Sonos customers with the Companies current Radio and music streaming service set to be integrated into the new OS.

Trade Desk admits that the new Sonos Ventura is being developed to deliver cross-platform content discovery, personalization, subscription management and advertising.

Unlike Hubbl, Sonos will not be able to deliver the likes of Kayo or the sports experience spanning Formula One, AFL or NRL games that a subscription to Kayo delivers.

It’s believed that Sonos plans to launch Ventura in 2025 to compete with Apple TV and Google TV Streamer.

After its poor foray into the premium headphones market with their new Ace offering which is already being discounted out Sonos is desperate for an uplift in sales with the Company taking to designing its own streaming hardware.

The inhouse development of a new Sonos app proved to be a disaster with customers Sono’s speakers crashing around the world.

TV specialists FlatpanelsHD claims that “Considering the rocky last several months that Sonos has endured — through a mess of its own making their latest Trade Desk arrangement sounds like yet another reason for customers to be wary about the company’s current trajectory”.

Trade Desk has declined to share any images of its newly announced Ventura operating system however they are claiming that the new OS will deliver “A much cleaner supply chain for streaming TV advertising, minimizing supply chain hops and costs”.

They also claim that Sonos will ‘maximum a ROI for every advertising dollar and optimized yield from publishers whose streaming packages are running on the new OS’.

The problem for Sonos is that the likes of Foxtel and every major TV platform has already made cross-platform content discovery a priority.

Most of them can already bill you in one place for subscriptions from different entertainment apps with the low cost Hubbl a classic example.

Trade Desk’s founder and CEO has been unable to explain how the new Sonos offering will stand out from a handful of entrenched heavyweights already in market in Australia.

The Verg claims that ‘We don’t know what the must-have feature will be, but we have an idea of when we’ll likely see it. The Sono’s streaming device is rumoured to arrive sometime in 2025, and by then, I expect the company will still be working to rebuild momentum (and repair customer trust) after this whole app saga. The Ace headphones were immediately overshadowed by the controversy, and they still aren’t selling well’.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence said “building momentum in headphones is taking longer than we had originally anticipated” during a recent earnings call.

The Verge writer said ” I maintain that they’re very nice headphones! Sonos playing in that category makes far more sense to me than releasing some also-ran TV box’.

The Sonos of a year or two ago could have afforded a gamble like getting into video. But the already-reeling Sonos of late 2024 had better have something very compelling in its back pocket for this to make sense.’
‘At least it’s got the operating system part figured out. And the ad revenue side, too’.

‘ Sonos just needs a convincing reason for people to buy its first effort in another very saturated market — if one exists’ especially as boxes such as Hubbl and Apple TV, Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV stick’ are cheaper, readily available and are trusted to not crash and burn similar to Sono’s recent app disaster.